Dad in-training: Coping with temper tantrums

I have a confession to make: I still don’t always know how to react when my 2-year-old daughter, Sarah, misbehaves. It’s a problem, because it happens a lot these days.

The issue came to the fore recently, during an epic, 15-minute showdown in the daycare parking lot. Sarah refused to sit in her car seat. But it was much, much more than that. It was a power struggle. To her, it was an opportunity to challenge parental authority.

“Think you can tell me what to do, daddy? Just try me.”

My fumbling attempts to pick her up and drop her into the seat led to a cat-and-mouse chase around the inside of the car. Each time I caught her, she responded with the same sort of “dead weight” tactic that protestors use when police officers try to haul them away. Doing nothing (“We’ll just sit here until you go in your car seat!”) accomplished exactly that: nothing. Raised voices were repeated back, infused with a sort of cheeky, smiley sarcasm that only my uber-precocious daughter can manage. And Idle threats were dismissed out-of-hand; she called my bluff every time.

“Straight to bed when we get home? Okay. No bedtime stories? Okay.”

We’ve heard of the “terrible twos.” Everyone talks about it. Even most non-parents know how difficult an age it can be. And we certainly expected to be challenged around the time our kids hit that magical 24-month milestone (mind you, we didn’t think it would hit 6 months early).

Temper tantrums. Monumental stubbornness. Talking back. Flying food. It’s all part of the package. We’ve been grappling with it ever since our Sarah learned how to say “no” – and, more importantly, how to use it.

Many parents, during the more challenging moments with their kids, will find themselves desperately throwing up their hands: “Help me! What do I do?”

And to be sure, there are plenty of wise souls – professional and otherwise – to offer valuable advice every step of the way. Here, for instance, are a few good tips on how to handle temper tantrums – or prevent them from happening at all:

Be consistent: One of the best pieces of advice that just about everyone will tell you is the need for consistency in your behaviour towards your child. Set reasonable limits and follow them consistently. Don’t give in one day and attempt to be firm on the same thing the next time it comes up. The results won’t likely be to your liking. For a good, quick list of suggestions on how to prevent temper tantrums, there’s a good, quick article on the Mayo Clinic’s website.

Don’t get too emotional. It’s easy to get frustrated when your toddler is having a meltdown. The NASP suggests you count to 10 and take the time to consider the source of your child’s frustration before determining your course of action. Raising your voice or getting angry can often escalate the situation.

Try to give your child control over some little things. According to kidshealth.org, some temper tantrums arise from a child’s need to exercise some form of independence or self-sufficiency, no matter how small it is. Controlled choices (“Do you want apple juice or milk?”) can satisfy this need. Another possibility is to give them minor responsibilities. For example, I found Sarah co-operated more when I put her in the car seat and let her help buckle her own seat belt. She was so proud of it that she told me, “I helped.”

One thing that remains painfully clear, though, is that there’s rarely a definitive answer to the questions we parents find ourselves asking ourselves every day. Sure, there are plenty of people out there to provide us with advice and professional services, from the doctors who treat our kids when they’re sick, to the teachers who help them learn, develop and socialize with other children. And we can learn a lot from their experience and expertise. But when it comes to the actual daily task of raising our kids, we’re essentially on our own. And while parents are often more than happy to tell us about what works for them, every child is different and no single nugget of parental wisdom applies equally to everyone.

Basically, there’s no such thing as professional parenting. When it comes to raising kids, we’re all amateurs. We’re parents-in-training from the moment our first child is born to the day we die. We spend our days flailing in the dark, eking out small victories and taking note of our failures.

For all our best efforts, none of us really, truly knows what we’re doing. At least not all of the time. And we’re mostly on our own to figure it all out. We’re constantly faced with that disconnect between what we think we ought to be doing in a situation, and the heat of the moment where we’re forced to make snap decisions. We welcome the opinions of others and, through our experiences, find what’s applicable to our own families and what isn’t. We’re self-reflective, too: we evaluate our own behaviour and determine what we should do differently in future. And we try not to beat ourselves up too much when we’re wrong – as we inevitably are at least part of the time.

What’s most important is that, as our children grow, so do we as parents. We might not always know what we’re doing, but at least we’re learning and improving every step of the way.